Porco, Planet Photographer

By Tianna Tavakol

Childhood

Carolyn C Porco was born on March 6th 1953 in the Bronx, NYC, USA, she is sixty years old and is an American astronomer. She is born into an Italian working-class family in New York.

Career

Carolyn has photographed- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. She has worked on several probe missions, one of her missions was launched to Pluto on January 19, 2006. Carolyn helped design the most complex camera sent into space! She completed her doctorate degree at the California Institute of Technology in 1983, she has done scientific research at the space and science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Carolyn was named in honour for contributions to field, planetary science, "Asteroid 7231 Porco".

Discoveries

Carolyn's team discovered geysers aka jets spewing water and ice on Saturn's moon Enceladus. She was the first person to describe the behaviour of the eccentric ringlets within the rings of Saturn. Carolyn had an idea to take portrait's of planets including famous pale blue dot image of Earth.

Knowing what the planets look like, helps us to see and get an idea of what the planets function like, which is very important. This is because students at schools can learn more about space.